‘Nigeria saves $7b from local content law application’

The Local Content Act signed into law in 2010 have begun to yeild fruits as over $7 billion has accrued to the nation’s treasury since the implementation of the Act and the oil industry has become more viable, the Oil and Gas Trainers’ Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) President, Dr. Mayowa Afe, has said.

Because of the increased participation of Nigerians in the oil and gas industry, he said, following the enactment of the local content, the nation was able to save the said sum of money in the last seven years of the existence of the Act’s implementation through retention of value in-country.

Afe explained that before the introduction of the local content law, the country was spending about $20 billion yearly in the industry, which did not reflect on the industry. Nevertheless, we can now categorically say from the data that was released by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), that over $5billion is being retained in the country.

He said: “We are already making a lot of progress. We saved nothing less than $7billion through the local content just by signing the local content bill into law.”

He also said the government was committed to attaining 70 per cent indigenous capacity by 2020, adding that one good thing that has happened to the oil and gas industry was signing into law of the local content bill.

Afe, who spoke with The Nation on telephone assured that Nigeria would soon attain 90 per cent capacity and that indigenous players would take the centre stage in the nation’s oil and gas industry operations as obtainable in Brazil.

On training, Afe reassured of the association’s commitment to projecting indigenous trainers, adding that the association would not relent in projecting them and to let Nigerians understand that we don’t need to go abroad for trainers.

“We do don’t have to spend dollars to train people in America and other countries of the world. We need these trainings here in Nigeria and we need to really patronise the trainers,” he said.

The association would also ensure that the local trainers acquired more global certification, and train more Nigerians in courses that could be globally accepted so that Nigerians can go and work in other parts of the world where oil and gas had been discovered.

“When we have such solid certification, Nigerians can go and work in other parts of the world including the African countries where we already have oil and gas,” he added.

As part of plans to achieve this, the association said it was engaging stakeholders, including the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and all the International Oil Companies (IOCs), adding its noteds to let them know the quality of capacity we have in country.

“We have already made it known to them that there were a lot of fabrication yards in Nigeria, so they don’t need to go and do all the fabrications of floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels outside the country,” Afe said, adding that before the end of the second quarter of the year, we would see the first FPSO built by Samsung here in Nigeria.

“So, we really need to let them (IOCs) know the capacity and capabilities we have in-country. We will begin to expose our people. We should be able to patronise them and from there we would begin to sponsor our people to participate in trade shows and expose the quality of people we have in-country,” he added.

The Executive Secretary, NCDMB, who Simbi Wabote spoke at the inauguration of the new national executives of OGTAN, charged them and other members to develop a minimum standard for training facilities for their members such that trainees would learn in a very conducive and safe environment.

He said the training programmes must lead to internationally recognised certification such that trainees could use it for gainful employment. He advised the Association to embark on creating an effective marketing strategy for the courses they offer, adding that the courses should also come with appropriate mix of classroom, online, practical, and other forms of learning formats so that the trainees could come off with a worthwhile learning experience.